The Halloween Creatures Book Tag
Rules: Answer all prompts. Answer honestly. Tag 1-13 people. Link back to this post. ( For me it was SnoopyDoo!) Remember to credit the creator. (Anthony @ Keep Reading Forward)< Have fun! Witch A Magical Character or Book Terry Pratchett’s witches, particularly Granny Weatherwax. And DEATH (preferably in his Hogfather incarnation). No contest. […]
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Hyeonseo Lee: The Girl with Seven Names
A riveting read and proof positive of the old adage that truth is vastly stranger than fiction: the true story of a young woman who defected from North Korea to China “by accident” right before her 18th birthday and, after ten years of trials and tribulations, eventually ended up in South Korea and, later, in […]
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Kofi Annan: Interventions: A Life in War and Peace
Mr. Annan was far and away the most influential and important Secretary General of the United Nations in its more recent history; his memoirs set forth with great passion and understanding how the experience of a lifetime, from growing up in post-WWII Ghana all the way to serving as Under-Secretary for Peacekeeping under Boutros Boutros-Ghali, […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019: Tracking Post — Blackout! (And bingos Nos. 12 and 13.)
Many thanks to Moonlight Reader and Obsidian Blue for hosting this game for the fourth year in a row, bigger and better than ever before! Witih today’s call, I’ve blacked out my card, in addition to collecting my final bingos (nos. 12 and 13). Somewhat to my surprise, after completing my books for my […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019: Tracking Post — Bingo No. 3 and Reading Blackout
* Triple Bingo Happy Dance * Well, that went by much faster than I had anticipated … Many thanks to Moonlight Reader and Obsidian Blue for hosting this game for the fourth year in a row, bigger and better than ever before! I’ll continue tracking my bingos of course — and since we now have […]
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Zen Cho: Sorcerer to the Crown
I knew early on that if it hadn’t been for Halloween Bingo I’d have DNF’d this book, and I was tempted to do just that right until the very end. When I began composing this post, I didn’t think I was going to write much more than “infantile drivel” in my summary of Cho’s book, […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019: The First Week
So, on the plus side, despite serious RL interventions progress on my card is well under way, with four squares (including the centre / free / raven square) marked “called and read”; three of these in a row — plus reading for the remaining two squares of that row also in progress — and several […]
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Banine: Days in the Caucasus
Well, looks like I was tempting fate after all. As it turns out, not every memoir set in the former USSR in the years before and during the Russian Revolution was really shouting out to be written. This is definitely one such — which is particularly disappointing as the writer’s father was a leading Azerbaijani […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/03 (Day 3): Favorite Ghostly Tales?
As I said in my first pre-party post, I’m not much of a horror reader, and the ghost stories I like almost all either feature a ghost who is the author’s messenger for some larger point, or they’re chiefly characters who have had such an impact on another character’s life, or on […]
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Renée Ahdieh: The Wrath and the Dawn
DNF @ 146 out of 432 pages …. and I’m out. This is insufferable. Granted, I’m not the target audience to begin with. But it’s not even the concept of “1001 Nights as a YA love story” that is putting me off the most, even though that does have at least something to do with […]
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M.M. Kaye: Death in Kashmir
Well, that was somewhat more of a slog than I had expected — and only in a minor part owing to M.M. Kaye herself; even though she does rely more on “dark and stormy night” scenarios than I would have liked to see, as well as on characters, including protagonists, behaving TSTL to such an […]
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Crowdsourced: More Books with a Difference — Fiction
You asked, Moonlight Reader? To quote from one of my additional entries below: “As you wish …” Without any further ado: Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies When Lillelara added A Place of Greater Safety to her list, I could have kicked myself — because Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell books were definitely among […]
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Xinran: The Good Women of China
Written with the Pen Grown in Her Heart Wow. Raw, sad, lyrical and candid — my first book of 2019, and already a huge winner; I’m pretty sure this will be one of my overall top reads of the year. I can see few ways how this reading experience can possibly be topped. Xinran tells […]
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My KYD Reads … or: Harry Potter, and What Else I read in March 2018
A big thank you to Moonlight Reader for yet another fun, inventive BookLikes game! I had a wonderful time, while also advancing — though with decidedly fewer new reads than I’d origianlly been planning — my two main reading goals for this year (classic crime fiction and books written by women). Harry Potter – […]
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Margaret Drabble: The Red Queen
I should have read the Crown Princess’s actual memoirs instead. Pretentious and self-centered. Forget the book blurbs — this actually isn’t about the Lady Hyegyōng but about Margaret Drabble and the “connection” she allegedly feels with this 18th century Korean princess. In fact, only the first half of the book even focuses on the Lady […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Final Tally
The Markers: Stack of Books: Books read Red Bows and Ribbons: Other Tasks completed Joker cards used: The Squares, Books and Other Tasks: Square 1: November 1st: All Saints Day / Día de los Muertos & Calan Gaeaf Book themes for Día de Muertos and All Saint’s Day: A book that […]
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Two Favorite Chinese Dishes — and Sherry Cream Dessert
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 11 – Dōngzhì Festival Tasks for Dōngzhì Festival: If you like Chinese food, tell us your favorite dish – otherwise, tell us your favorite dessert. Alright, I admit I haven’t made these in a while (so the pretty pics aren’t mine), but the Chinese recipes are from a […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 14 – Dies Natalis Solis Invicti
Tasks for Dies Natalis Solis Invicti: Find the sunniest spot in your home, that’s warm and comfy and read your book. –OR– Take a picture of your garden, or a local garden/green space in the sun (even if the ground is under snow). If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, take a picture of your local […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Updates / Blackout
I’ve yet to read at least one book for some of the squares, but I’ve completed a minimum of either one book or one task for all of the squares, and in several cases, more. The Markers: Stack of Books: Books read Red Bows and Ribbons: Other Tasks completed […]
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Chris Bohjalian: The Sandcastle Girls
Not an entirely bad book, but boy, this could have been so much more. Ostensibly, it deals with the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turkey in the middle of WWI. What we really get is — at least chiefly — the love story of an American volunteer nurse trainee who has accompanied her father on a […]
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